Who We Are & Why We're Doing This

We're Christian moms who not only love books, but love helping our kids learn to love books - and the Lord. This blog is our ministry, started because we couldn't find a comprehensive website of Christian children's picture book reviews. We hope you find it useful.

(Founder, Executive Editor, Reviewer) is the mom of a sweet and sassy 9 year old girl and an active 6 year old son. She's also the author of over 20 books. Visit Kristina at her blog Proverbs 31 Woman.

(Reviewer & Special Project Copyeditor) is the mother of Pierce, who is 15, and Natalie, 21. Christine is also the author of 11 children’s books. She lives in Ohio with her husband Bill, her son Pierce, and her dog, Black Velvet. Follow Christine's blog here.

Suzette Ladouceur(Reviewer) is a stay-at-home, homeschooling mommy to two littles (5 and 2), and wife to a sweet, loving husband. Before choosing to stay at home with her children, she was a teacher for 11 years - 1 year as an elementary music teacher and 10 years as a 4th/5th grade teacher. Learn more about Suzette and her family her blog, The Joy of Homemaking

(Reviewer) is a wife, mom, 5th grade teacher and cancer survivor. Her daughter Sydney is 10, son Lucas is 5 and daughter Ella Grace is 4. You can learn more about Amy and her story at her blog, Some of the Best Things in Life are Mistakes.

The book opens and closes with a message from the author. Meier explains that the book is not set up in a linear fashion but that chapters can be read in any order. Because it’s written from a Christian perspective, Meier also provides some Scripture references in the text. The rest of the book is divided into three sections, where Meier tackles topics involving the mind, body, and soul of a young girl.

Under “mind”, Meier addressed self-esteem, romance, prejudice and perception, pressure and the real you, going online and the digital you, and disorders and who can help. In this section, I thought Meier’s online/digital advice and frank talk about disorders was spot on. She acknowledged both the advantages and dangers of electronic communication, and gave good advice on how to protect yourself from those dangers. For disorders, she not only laid out warning signs, she provided information about where a teen can go to find help.

Under “body”, Meier discussed beauty, fashion, puberty, sex and sexuality, guys, and personal rights (which had to do with sexual harassment, abuse, and self-defense). I thought the two best chapters in this section were on beauty and sexuality. I appreciated Meier stating that in today’s society, how we look on the outside really does count… because, let’s face it, it does. She suggests teens dress in a way that makes them feel confident without going overboard on makeup. The chapter on sex and sexuality briefly brings up masturbation and sexual temptation. Meier makes it clear that sex is for after marriage. Most of this chapter follows a question and answer format.

Under “mind”, Meier looked at family, friends, religion, volunteer work, and choosing who you will be. Meier paints a picture of what a family should be—loving, supporting, protecting—and then gives some straight talk about what to do when families don’t get along or are abusive. In the religion section, she points out the main differences between Christianity and a variety of other religions and gives succinct summaries about each religion she mentions. (They are Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism.)

What I Like: I appreciate the inclusion of website and numbers teens can call to find help for eating disorders… which, as the author notes, is a major problem for teen girls. I was impressed with the scope of the issues she addressed, and how she fit them into one of the three subheading of mind, body, or soul. Meier gave a lot of great advice and information without sounding preachy, which means this book might also work for a general market audience. She appealed to logic as well as emotion in making her presentations. I wish a book like this had been available for me when I was a teen!

What I Dislike: In the self-esteem chapter, Meier repeatedly referred to the “Land of No”, a phrase she got from a book by Caroline Knapp called Appetites. Since I haven’t read that book, I found this reference a little confusing. In the romance chapter, I didn’t think the checklist for determining what kind of emotional girl you are was very accurate or realistic. It’s hard to fit girls into one of two categories when it comes to romance. I thought a few of the chapters were a bit too shallow (fashion, prejudice), but they did, at least, provide a nice overview. Also, while the book gave some Scriptural references, I felt like it didn’t provide enough. I would have liked a list of Scripture to look up or a workbook-like section for girls to find out more about where God stands on some of the issues Meier addressed. Perhaps that would have helped flesh out some of the chapters that I felt addressed the topics too superficially. Finally, I felt like in Meier’s attempt to “talk teen”, some of her wording seemed awkward. Some of the slang in the book is already obsolete.

Overall Rating: Very Good... Plus Amazon has an excellent low price on this book, making it a real bargain!

1 comment:

I'm working with this girls age group at our church mentioned in this book.

Where you were confused with the land of no, I was also confused since I had not read the book she quoted from.

The books is very helpful as a reference book for me. I'd also purchased the book thinking we could pass it around in our group for the more curious. Yes, I also wished there was a book like this for me as a teen. All I had was rumors and teen magazines!

I believe the book is worth purchasing if you are involved in any way with girls this age. For me it could have used more biblical references. It's okay to have this information presented in the book, but it's also very important to bring the girls back to what's in the Bible that will give them stability and answers. The book gave a sprinkling of scriptures which were helpful.

Appreciate the thorough review. It made me go back and look through the book again.

BROWSE BY TOPIC

BROWSE BY AGE

POPULAR AUTHORS

ARCHIVES

Design by

Disclosure

The books reviewed on this website are often review copies, which are sent to us free of cost, as is traditional for all professional book review publications. We receive no perks, payment, or other freebies for reviewing books, and we are not required or encouraged to review books in a positive manner.

SUPPORT THIS SITE!

Every time you click on one of our Amazon links and buy anything within 24 hours of the initial click through - whether it's one of the books we've reviewed or that chainsaw your husband's been drooling over - we earn a small commission. If you click through to one of our ChristianBook links and purchase anything within four hours, the same is true. This encourages us, which is good. Too, ChristianBook and Amazon have great prices...so it's a win-win situation. (Please note, if you wish us to receive a commission, you cannot place the item in your wishlist and order it days (weeks, months) later.) Thank you for your support!